16.

M ATTEO

“If they didn’t talk so funny, I’d think I was back home,” Salvatore said quietly as we watched Bella’s family interact with each other.

“They’re loud enough to fit right in,” Rocco agreed before he took another bite of food. “The food is different, but damn, it’s good.”

“If I eat anything else, I’m probably going to explode, but I don’t give a shit,” Salvatore said as he looked toward the table of food that Bella’s mom and her aunts had set out. “Did you try the pudding?”

“Not yet,” Rocco answered.

“It’s a religious experience.”

I started laughing, remembering my reaction to the dessert that night at the wedding. Salvatore’s description was spot on, and I was glad Bella’s mom had served me an extra heaping portion of the pudding even though I was so full, I knew I’d be miserable for the rest of the afternoon.

Bella’s parents had been very nice to us, although I’d caught her father watching me several times throughout the meal. Bella’s mother seemed a bit standoffish but very polite and pleasant.

The rest of her family ran the gamut from loud and boisterous to quiet and studious, but they all interacted together happily with good-natured arguments, a whole lot of teasing, and lots of laughter. I’d been introduced to so many people at this point that I couldn’t remember a single name and was shocked to find that every one of them treated me like an old friend - and that included more teasing and lots of laughter, most of which was aimed at my accent of which I jokingly insisted didn’t exist.

“Hi,” a woman I’d met earlier, whose name escaped me, said as she sat down across from me and leaned her hands on the table. She burst out laughing and said, “I can see you’re scrambling to remember who I am to Bella and what my name might be.”

“It’s unique. I remember that much.”

The woman stuck her hand out and said, “I’m Liberty Evans.”

“Matteo Russo. You must be one of Bella’s cousins.”

“Hmm,” Liberty hummed with a grin before she teased, “Look at you sucking up. No. I would be one of her honorary aunts, I suppose. My sisters are her Aunt Violet and Aunt London.”

“Okay,” I said as I nodded. I looked around to remind myself which women those two might be and the woman in front of me laughed before she pointed them out. I smiled at her before I asked, “If both of your sisters married into the family, why didn’t you?”

“Because I married a big strong biker who will kill you without flinching if you hurt our sweet little niece.” Salvatore started coughing, and Rocco handed him a napkin to cover his mouth so he didn’t spit all over the table before he looked at Liberty in an entirely new light. “I’m just being honest here.”

“I appreciate that, but you don’t have anything to worry about.”

“Oh, I know I don’t, I’m just making sure you understand that you do.”

“Well, thank you.”

“Of course.” Liberty looked over her shoulder when someone laughed loudly, and I saw four women talking to Bella and a set of identical twin women who looked so much alike that it reminded me of my similarities with Luca. “There are a lot of twins in this family.”

“It's crazy, that’s for sure. Especially Chess and Katy’s kids.”

“Which ones are they?” I asked.

“The four women talking to Bella. They’re all Bella’s cousins, but the identical twins are Vivi and Evi. The other four are anomalies.”

“And why are they an anomaly?”

“They’re quadruplets.”

“Oh! I’ve never met quadruplets before.”

“Not many people have,” Liberty mused. “They thought the girls were just going to be triplets because they never spotted May, the fourth one, in the sonograms. It sort of makes sense that Chess and Katy had multiples, though.”

“How does that make sense? It’s crazy!”

“He’s a twin, and so is she. They each come from an identical set, which is rare in and of itself, but then they had the quads.” Salvatore burst out laughing, and when I turned to look at him and Rocco, I found them both trying to control themselves so they didn’t draw attention to us. Liberty didn’t understand what was so funny so she asked, “Why are they laughing?”

“Bella is a twin.”

“Yes,” Liberty said with a condescending smile. “You just picked up on that?”

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and found the same picture I’d shown Bella before I slid the phone across the table to her aunt. She looked down at it and burst out laughing before she picked it up and rushed away.

“She just took off with your phone.”

I ignored Rocco, and Salvatore said, “Give him a minute. He’s still processing.”

“She’s got my phone. Google the odds,” I ordered.

It didn’t take long before Rocco read aloud, “The odds of a woman who is a fraternal twin having twins herself is 1 in 60. The odds of having identical twins is around 1 in 250 but other factors may increase the chances.”

“What other factors?”

“Looks like it doesn’t matter that you’ve got a twin, but . . .” Rocco snorted and laughed again before he said, “It raises the odds when the woman has a family history of twins.”

“Wasn’t her biological mother a fraternal twin? I think I heard someone say . . .”

“Yes. The man that raised her is her biological mother’s twin.”

“Her biological mother came from a family that’s made up almost exclusively of twins . . .”

“No, not almost,” I corrected Salvatore. “All of her uncles came in sets. So did her aunt who passed. She’s the second generation of fraternal twins.”

Rocco started laughing, and I glared at him when he asked, “Looks like all that betting and playing the odds is gonna come in handy for you, boss.”

“You’re fired.”

“No, I’m not,” he retorted, laughing again. “Think of how well Zach’s been doing with twins at his house. That could be you. Hell. That will probably be you.”

Salvatore couldn’t stop himself from chuckling as he said, “Zach’s been exhausted since the day those babies were born.”

“I ran into him in the hall the other day and had to tell him to change his shirt before a meeting because he had baby puke down the back of it,” Rocco cackled.

“Stefania had colic and cried almost every second she was awake, but my mom said that wasn’t a problem because they’d already survived having two at once,” I mused. “She screamed for months. ”

“Imagine having that times two,” Rocco whispered with an exaggerated grimace. “Okay. That’s it. Go ahead and fire me now.”

“It’s a little early to start planning a family,” I whispered, still in shock at the thought of what might happen.

“Are you going to try and lie to us and say you haven’t already considered it?” Salvatore asked. When I didn’t answer, he grinned as he leaned back against his chair and crossed his arm. “That’s what I thought.”

“That’s it. You’re fired too.”

Of course, my friends, who also happened to be my long-time employees, didn’t listen to me. They’d seen what happened to people who were no longer welcome in my close circle - and they knew me well enough to understand that they weren’t in any danger, so our running joke of me canceling their employment didn’t affect them at all other than to make them laugh.

They were still chuckling when Bella walked across the wide expanse of the “meeting hall,” as she’d referred to the big barn-like structure at the edge of her neighborhood where the Sunday dinner had been moved to after her family showed up en masse at her parents’ home, and sat down in the chair next to me.

“Did y’all get some dessert?”

“It was delicious,” I said as Salvatore and Ricco groaned and made a show of rubbing their flat stomachs.

“My aunt made coffee. Do you want a cup?”

I looked at my watch before I asked, “How long do these occasions usually last?”

“We’re free to go anytime. We usually stay and help Mom clean up, but since the rest of the family is here, too, there are plenty of people around to do that.”

“I don’t mind staying to help.”

“I can tell by the look on your face that you’re ready to bolt.”

“That’s not what’s got me stressed,” I admitted.

“Who was ugly to you?” Bella asked as her entire demeanor changed.

“Nobody,” I assured her. When she narrowed her eyes at me as if that would make me fess up, I assured her, “Everyone has been nothing but kind since I arrived.”

“My uncles didn’t give you any shit?”

I thought about her scowling Uncle Angus who I had no doubt wanted to rip me limb from limb and the muscular twin uncles who looked like they could do it easily and then the younger uncles who laughed and joked at my expense to try and get a rise out of me.

Finally, with a completely straight face, I said, “Everyone was perfectly pleasant.”

“Yeah,” Bella said as she looked around. “I knew you were lying.”

Salvatore and Rocco tried to stifle their laughter as I reached for Bella’s hand. “I wouldn’t blame them if they threatened me.” When Bella’s gaze snapped back to my face, I hurried to say, “Not that any of them did, but if they had, I wouldn’t have blamed them. They all love you and want to make sure you’re safe, and I have no illusion that they think being with me would make you very unsafe.”

“Will it?” Bella asked uncertainly.

I blew out a long breath before I said, “I’ll do everything in my power to make sure that you’re taken care of, Bella, but the world is a crazy place and . . .”

“Screws fall out all the time, the world is an imperfect place.”

It took me a second to get her reference, and by the time I figured out that she was quoting the movie The Breakfast Club, Salvatore and Rocco had gotten the joke too.

“Exactly. But we take all precautions to make sure that the people we love are safe.”

“I know you protect your family but . . .”

“I’ll say it again, Twang. We take all precautions to make sure that the people we love are safe.”

Bella’s eyes got wide, and I sensed movement across from me and knew that Salvatore and Rocco had walked away to give us some privacy.

“Are you saying you love me?”

“I am,” I said uncomfortably. “I didn’t mean to blurt it out like that but, yeah. I’m in love with you, Bella Conner. How could I not be?”

“Even after you met my family?” she asked incredulously.

“Meeting your family told me two things. The first is that you’ll fit right in with my Italian family because you’re used to big groups of chaos and you understand loyalty and the importance of taking care of the people you love. The second . . .”

“How can you tell that just from watching me with my family?” Bella interrupted.

“Your mom looked uncomfortable earlier, and you swept in and got her to sit down and then took over the task she was doing.”

Bella laughed before she said, “Of course I did. It was obvious that her leg was paining her, and I knew that she wouldn’t stop working until someone took over. I’ve been doing that for as long as I can remember because she tries to take care of everyone else and ignore what she needs. That’s just her way.”

“Exactly.”

“What was your second reason?”

“Your loyalty to your friends. I’ve seen you checking your phone looking for updates about Zoey, and I know that you’re helping organize a fundraiser for her since she’ll be out of work for quite a while. You’re right in the middle of a cross-country move and willing to drop everything to help your friend.”

“I’ve been friends with Zoey since we were too little to understand what the word meant,” Bella scoffed. “Of course I’m going to do everything I can to help her.”

“And even though you have doubts about moving so far away, you’re still trying to power through and roll with it. I’m not sure if that’s because you just want the adventure or because of how you feel about me.”

“I’m trying to keep them separate.”

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t know how you felt about me and, like I said earlier, the world is an imperfect place. What if we are close enough to start spending a lot of time together and you realize that you don’t like me nearly as much as you did when I was so far away? Will I still have a job? I’ll be completely alone in a big city that I don’t know anything about, a million miles away from my family with no one to lean on. I don’t know if I can do that, but I want to take that risk and try.”

“Your job has nothing to do with our relationship. Bernadette is a very fair woman, but she’s also an astute businesswoman. When she first opened her business, she relied on a woman whose only reference came from me and my brother, but she put her through her paces before she gave her free reign. She wouldn’t hire you and get you to move all the way to New York unless she had complete faith in you, and she does because she’s seen you in action.”

“But her loyalty is to you,” Bella argued. Suddenly, she said, “As it should be. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing.”

“And just like you, she can keep business and family separate,” I said, not sure how I would explain to Bella that we occasionally used that business to launder money for our other ones. She might not ever realize that since she wouldn’t be the one doing the books, and if someday she started to, then she’d have to be told, but from what I’d learned about Bella over the last month and a half, I didn’t think she’d have a problem with it as long as we could assure her that she would never take the fall for something me or my business associates did behind the scenes.

I shook that thought off, promising to think about it another day, and smiled at Bella before I said, “I’m ready to leave now if you don’t think that will upset your family.”

“They’re all gradually trickling away, so I don’t think we’ll be missed.”

“Let’s go then.”

“We’ll sneak out the side door and . . .”

I shook my head as I stood up and said, “I can’t do that.”

“Why not? No one will even notice that we’re gone.” I shook my head before I took Bella’s hand and started pulling her toward the table where her parents were sitting with some of her uncles and their wives. Bella realized what I was doing and hissed, “Why are you going closer to them? The door is that way!”

I stopped next to Mrs. Conner’s seat, and the woman who was talking stopped and stared at me, causing the people whose backs were turned my way to twist around. When Mrs. Conner looked up, I extended my free hand and said, “Thank you very much for inviting me to lunch, ma’am. Everything was delicious, and I appreciate all the hard work you must have put into feeding everyone.”

Mrs. Conner looked shocked but put her hand in mine and stammered, “You’re welcome, Matteo. Thank you for coming.”

When she let my hand go, I looked around the table until my eyes landed on Mr. Conner. “Thank you for having me, sir. It was a pleasure to meet you.” When he just nodded at me, I smiled at the rest of Bella’s family and said, “It was a pleasure to meet all of you.”

It seemed like the entire table of people was pleasantly surprised that I’d taken the initiative to come speak to them, and I swore to myself that I was going to figure out how to pay Tabby back for her great advice as I turned toward Bella and asked, “Are you ready to go?”

Bella had an odd look on her face that transformed into a blinding smile when she squeezed my hand and said, “Lead the way, Matteo. I’ll go anywhere with you.”